{"id":81593,"date":"2015-01-12T14:08:56","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T14:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=81593"},"modified":"2015-01-12T14:08:56","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T14:08:56","slug":"blood-test-help-smokers-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=81593","title":{"rendered":"Blood test ‘to help smokers quit’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A blood test could help people choose a stop-smoking strategy that would give them the best chance of quitting, research in a Lancet journal suggests.<\/p>\n

Studies show as many as 60% of people who try to give up start smoking again in the first week.<\/p>\n

But researchers argue measuring how quickly a person breaks down nicotine could boost the chances of success.<\/p>\n

Other experts say the cost-effectiveness of these extra tests would need to be assessed.<\/p>\n

Patches or pills<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances in cigarettes – smokers crave more nicotine when their body’s levels drop, prompting them to smoke again.<\/p>\n

But different people break down nicotine at different rates.<\/p>\n

Some scientists suggest people who break it down more quickly may crave more cigarettes and in turn find it harder to quit.<\/p>\n

In this study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the US enlisted some 1,240 people on different smoking cessation programmes.<\/p>\n

They checked each volunteer’s blood to see if nicotine was broken down at a normal or slow rate.<\/p>\n

Volunteers received either a nicotine patch, a drug called varenicline or treatment with a dummy pill.<\/p>\n

Varenicline is a non-nicotine based drug that is available on prescription . Doctors balance potential side-effects – including the risk of depression and suicide – against the harms of continued smoking.<\/p>\n

Everyone in the trial had access to behavioural counselling too.<\/p>\n

\"Nicotine<\/div>\n
Nicotine replacement can be in the form of patches and sprays<\/div>\n

Scientists found people who broke down nicotine at a normal rate had a better chance of quitting while using varenicline than those using nicotine replacement patches.<\/p>\n

Though volunteers who broke nicotine down more slowly had similar success rates whichever method they used, they reported more side-effects with the varenicline.<\/p>\n

Prof Caryn Lerman, one of the lead researchers, said: “If these tests are used, people could have a sizeable chance of success.<\/p>\n

Wider use<\/span><\/p>\n

“For some people, with normal metabolism of nicotine, the chance of success might be low on the patches but could double if they take the pill while for a third of the population with slower breakdown, cheaper patches might be best.”<\/p>\n

Blood tests to check for nicotine breakdown speed are currently used in research but scientists say they could be easily developed for much wider use.<\/p>\n

Prof Neil Davies, of the University of Bristol, provided an independent comment: “The results are an important scientific advance.<\/p>\n

“If the findings can be replicated they could lead to changes in practice. But there are still questions that need to be answered.<\/p>\n

“The cost-effectiveness of these tests would need to be taken into account.”<\/p>\n

Prof Robert West, from University College London, who was not involved in this paper, said: “We know that if people try to quit unaided their chance of success for a year is about 4%.<\/p>\n

“The way to succeed is to keep trying. It is like rolling a dice. If you keep rolling it you will succeed but if you stop rolling you will fail.”<\/p>\n

The University of Pennsylvania research was published in the the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A blood test could help people choose a stop-smoking strategy that would give them the best chance of quitting, research in a Lancet journal suggests. Studies show as many as 60% of people who try to give up start smoking again in the first week. But researchers argue measuring how quickly a person breaks down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":81594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-81593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chinese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}